PCs don’t have choices other than in how they go about accomplishing their own goals and interests. They’re never presented with the possibility of missing an encounter because there are no encounters that exist unless they are there to further the PC’s interests.
This is not very clear to me.
The PCs are imaginary characters in an imaginary world. They have the same sorts of choices that anyone else in their circumstances in that world would have. And things happen to them, or not, just as they do to anyone else. If the PCs turn up to the docks hoping to meet Tolub the priate, and Tolub is not there, then they will not encounter Tolub. If the PCs want to enter Megloss's house, but don't want to be caught, then they might sneak in through the back, thus avoiding an unwanted encounter with Megloss or his housekeeper Krystal.
At the table, these are player action declarations -
we go to the docks hoping to meet Tolub, or
we sneak in through the back of the house, so that no one notices us. And those action declarations are resolved in the usual fashion.
But there is no "encounter" that is "missed".
Consider an analogue: I am playing chess, and I choose to advance my queen pawn, when it was equally open to me to advance my king pawn. I've made my choice, and the game unfolds. I haven't "missed" or "bypassed" the game where I advance my king pawn.
My D&D GM runs their game for two different groups. Apparently my group has had more encounters than the other because we’ve gone out of our way to befriend NPCs that the other group ignored or fought. By befriending them, we “unlocked” additional options. I don’t know how they write their adventures so I don’t know how much was pre-planned and how much was improvised, though.
Or here’s an event I’ve related before in other threads: I was in a game ages ago (D&D3x 3pp AP, GURPS system). At one point, the adventure path wanted us to get a magic item that was being held in an intradimensional bank vault. The game assumed we would do a heist, or at least that was the impression I got. Instead we found the previous owner’s grave, hired a lawyer, and I cast the GURPS version of speak with dead to get legal permission to withdraw the item for our personal use. Thus, our choices caused us to bypass a huge number of encounters.
The notion of "optional" encounters, the game "assuming" things, etc, all seems to me to have some relationship to prep and pre-planned events.
But I'm not sure how you can have
more encounters, unless your table speaks more quickly or resolves things more quickly than the other table?
The players have a choice. This is the important thing. They chose one door over another. They could also choose to go back after they finished with the room behind Door #1 and go to Door #2, thus ensuring they deal with both encounters. Or they could not go down the hallway at all and miss both.
What are these "encounters" that the PCs do or don't deal with?
Suppose that I am walking through the streets of Rome - wonderful streets to walk through! And I see a fountain in a plaza to my left; and a basilica across a small square to my right. So I choose to go left, and admire the fountain. And while I'm doing that, I notice something else - say, a food vendor - and go and buy some food, and then see something else, and go and look at /do that. Had I gone right to check out the basilica, I would have had a different set of experiences. Or, suppose that having seen the fountain and eaten my food I go back to the basilica: well, that means there's something
else that I'm not doing; and of course the basilica experience will not be identical now to what it would have been then - different people, maybe there's a mass being said (or not), maybe the sun has moved and so the windows present a different experience, etc, etc. Ultimately, my time in Rome being finite, and my life being finite, when I die there will always be things that I didn't see, experiences that I didn't have.
But it hardly makes sense to say that I "bypassed an encounter" with the basilica; or with the fountain. I just chose one possibility over another.
So likewise at the RPG table, in my experience. The players declare actions, and events occur. We're not going to run out of game to play: we'll be dead before our imagines are exhausted.
If we are talking specifically about map-and-key resolution, then I can see that "bypass an encounter" might be a way of saying "didn't go to a particular place on the map". Or something like that. Is that what is meant?
Here is a write-up for a short Torchbearer scenario, which includes a map-and-key for resolving action declarations pertaining to geography, architecture and what stuff is in what place. In the scenario write-up, there is the following:
Ascending the stair requires an Ob 1 Dungeoneering test (Ob 2 for two persons, Ob 3 for a small group); the climbers will notice lint stuck to a small outcrop of rock (from the breeches of a passing Orc);
Suggested twist: as the light fades (dim light, +1 Ob), the climbers are assaulted by four Orcs – a Named leader, who will act as a boss, and three others – on the stairs and the mountainside above, who attempt to drive them off with disposition 9 (each climber suffers -1D to all action until they have succeeded on a Manoeuvre to rush up the stairs; additional successes generate Manoeuvre effects as usual).
If the climbers are driven off, at night the Orcs will follow them and try and assault them in their camp. A compromise should include the exhausted condition.
Here is how the ascent of the stair, and some subsequent stuff, actually played out at my table:
Climbing the stairs required a Dungeoneering test - Golin made the test, helped by his cousin Aldric and by Fea-bella Scouting ahead, and using his rope as gear. This was successful, and they came to the top of the stairs despite the snow and Golin's lack of tools.
While climbing the stairs, the PCs noticed some lint caught on an outcrop of rock. Fea-bella examined it, and a Beginner's Luck Peasant test was rolled. This failed: so Fea-bella recognised that the lint was from the breeches of an Orc, and became Afraid as a result. This didn't stop the PCs reaching the top of the stairs, where the characters could see a tunnel entrance (facing east; so entering it would be heading west); and they could see writing carved above the entrance, and on the southern (left) side of the entrance. Fea-bella tried to read that second piece of writing, but the Scholar test failed and so I sprang my twist: a group of Orcs was coming down a narrow way that continued upwards from the top of the stair - a narrow way that the PCs had not noticed - and was attacking the PCs, to drive them off.
That is, the players
succeeded at the Dungeoneering test, and hence did not suffer a twist. I would not describe this as "bypassing" an encounter with Orcs - it's just succeeding at an action declaration, and hence not suffering a twist encounter.
When, a few minutes later at the table, I needed to narrate a failure for the attempt to read the writing, I drew on my prep and decided on an encounter with Orcs, although because the PCs were not on the stair but rather on more level terrain at its top, the circumstances of the fight were not quite as debilitating for them.
Again, I wouldn't describe this as
failing to bypass an encounter. The players failed their Scholar test, and so suffered a twist, which I - as GM - decided took the form of an attack by nearby Orcs with the intent of driving the PCs off.
Here's another thing that happened in that session:
they headed down the tunnel. This led them to the vault of the shrine proper: as I told the players, the vault is roughly circular, with the tunnel entering it on its east side. In its centre is a pool, with boulders lying in it. The ceiling is very high, and too dark to be seen, but with an opening visible at its top, through which they could see the red light of dawn. They couldn't properly judge the height, but it seemed clearly too high to drop a rope down. On the other (western) side of the pool, just illuminated by their candles, they could see a stone plinth.
They filled their waterskins from the pool, but made a point of not examining it closely; as a result (as I subsequently taunted them, near the end of the session) they did not find the 6D of gold coins at its bottom, nor the body of the mountain goat that had recently fallen into it (which would be two portions of game for cooking).
Because the players deliberately chose not to look in the pool, they did not prompt me to tell them about the gold and the goat. So this is something that the players
missed, because of the way their action declarations were resolved by reference to the map-and-key.
The players chose not to examine the pool closely because they were worried about what might be in there. Let's suppose, just for the sake of illustration, that rather than gold and a goat the map key describes the pool as containing a water spirit who enchants and tries to drown anyone who looks into its eyes. In that case, the players' choice would have been a lucky one rather than an unfortunate one. Would that be an example of "bypassing an encounter"?
